A software engineer, frustrated and emotionally exhausted, took to social media to recount how his manager insisted that he continue working from the hospital even as his mother lay in a coma.
In a post titled “Manager asked me to work no matter what from hospital when my mother is in a coma,” he wrote from the hospital corridor itself — sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, and unsure how to cope.
According to him, the nightmare began when his mother suddenly slipped into a diabetic coma. The timing was unfortunate: it was the end of a sprint cycle at his company, and some tasks on his side were still pending. He immediately informed his manager and took leave on Wednesday and Thursday, remaining at the hospital throughout.
Although his mother briefly recovered after treatment and was discharged — against medical advice — her condition worsened again within days. She fell into another coma, and the family had to rush her back to the emergency room.
The engineer explained that he was solely responsible for key internal framework work, and the sprint tasks had been assigned exclusively to him. Instead of receiving support, understanding, or backup, he claimed that his manager instructed him to “bring the laptop to the hospital and start working because the team would be frozen without him.”
With his mother unconscious beside him and nurses moving hurriedly around, he said he found himself sitting in an empty waiting hall, staring at his laptop, trying to write code he could no longer focus on. He described himself as “burnt out,” drained, and barely functioning — yet still expected to work through crisis after crisis.
Despite working from the hospital for four consecutive days, he said the manager continued to pressure him to conduct KT (knowledge transfer) sessions so the tasks could eventually be reassigned. His leaves were exhausted. His sleep was broken. And he felt helpless — pulled between a family emergency and unrelenting workplace expectations.
The engineer wrote that all he could do now was pray for his mother’s recovery, hoping the situation would ease enough for him to escape the impossible position he had been forced into.
